Daddy's Little Desk Jockey
by Sale
Summary: A sequel to "Daddy's Little Angel."  Frex is back in his governor's chair, getting ready for Bring Your Spawn To Work Day and plotting to win back Munchkinland's favor.  What could possibly go wrong?
1. Frex's Brilliant Plan

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Wicked or anything else that doesn't sound like a work of fanfiction.

**Author's Note:** This story is a sequel to "Daddy's Little Angel," which is both musicalverse and set long before Elphaba and Nessarose set foot in Shiz. I highly recommend checking it out.

**Chapter 1: Frex's Brilliant Plan**

A year had passed since the incident with the Emerald City Department of Child Welfare. In Governor Frexspar Thropp's absence, Munchkinland soon found its government in the most rapid decline it had seen in decades. However, before any reversible damage had been done to the region's structure, a kind representative from Shiz University noticed the plight and paid Frex's bail in full. Frex quickly found himself back in the Governor's Mansion again, thanking his lucky stars that the munchkins were, for the most part, incapable of governing themselves.

Most of that notion came from the fact that, unbeknownst to the general population, Frex deliberately kept all of the region's most important documents under lock and key in a safe on the top shelf of his bookcase. Arguably, the fact that he was one of only a select few officials who were tall enough to reach it ensured his almost unanimous election year after year.

After his release, Frex learned that the Shiz representative must have offered some sort of bribe to the Department of Child Welfare as well. Upon re-entering his old mansion, he'd also somehow regained custody over both of his daughters: Nessarose, age nine, and Elphaba, age I-Don't-Remember. Unfortunately, his benefactor neglected to pay off his Oz Express Platinum debt, but for what it was worth he wasn't complaining. Frex vowed that this would be the year he would cement his place in Munchkinland's history with a revolutionary bureaucratic reorganization that would, above all other things, earn the region its own Quoxball team. He would never have to worry about credit card debt or losing his reputation again.

It had been five months since his return to power, and the next day was going to be absolutely crucial in re-establishing himself and winning over his citizens' trust.

"Come on, Frex, pull yourself together. Tomorrow's gonna be a big day," Frex said to himself, forcing a grin as he pored over his to-do list for the upcoming morning. Tomorrow would be the 50th day of the fiscal year: Bring Your Spawn to Work Day. It was the grandest excuse Frex could think of to have little Nessa follow him to work, look tragically adorable, and make a show of stamping paperwork for him. That giant publicity stunt would make up for everything he lost the previous year. Government-endorsed free labor, self-promotion, _and_ a chance to spend the day with his undisputed favorite daughter, all in one event! The only thing Frex didn't like about Bring Your Spawn to Work Day was that he didn't think of the idea himself.

He made sure Elphaba tucked her younger sister in early to ensure she'd be wide awake and in good spirits the next day, where it really counted. Frex made sure he had a nice pile of documents in need of stamps for the next day. Maybe if Nessa had managed to get any better at it than she was last Bring Your Spawn to Work Day, he'd teach her how to use the wax seal early! If she were to succeed her father and become governor herself, as Frex hoped she would, she would absolutely need to familiarize herself with the demands the position required as early on as possible.

In any case, as far as Frex was concerned, having Nessa succeed him as governor was infinitely preferable to getting that other kid to do the job. Goodness knows she would probably incite a riot. All of those ridiculous ideas she always had stuck up in her noggin would never please the public, and on top of that, she was inexplicably green. He hated the fact that he could never explain that in a way that sounded the least bit normal. If it wouldn't have looked bad for his public image, he would have had her shipped off to a facility in the Emerald City long, long ago…and that didn't even take into consideration the weird things that happened whenever Elphaba found herself under extreme emotional distress. Nobody (save for an emotionally-scarred, but otherwise frighteningly dull former employee of the defunct SuperSharp Pencil Factory) even knew about _those_ incidents, and Frex wholeheartedly intended for things to stay that way.

Fortunately, Elphaba would be spending Bring Your Spawn to Work Day far, far away from City Hall, polishing all of her father's Emerald City Wizards memorabilia like a good kid and staying out of trouble. Tomorrow was going to be a splendid day.

Why, then, was he unable to shake the sinking feeling in his gut that somewhere along the line something was going to go horribly wrong?


	2. Change of Plans

**Disclaimer: **Wicked's not mine.

**Author's Note: **B-flat. Also a major thanks to FaeTheDevoutScholar, who inadvertently helped me realize that 'Bring Your Spawn to Work Day' just sounded better than 'Take Your Spawn to Work Day.' You get a cookie. The rest of you rock too!

* * *

**Chapter 2: Change of Plans**

Frex hummed a merry tune to himself as he flipped Nessa's omelet over. He'd made sure to season it to perfection, with extra cheese, just the way she liked it. In fact, he was in such a good mood he'd even left the box of Bran Cubes out for Elphaba so she wouldn't have to open the cupboard and use a chair to reach the top shelf. She was getting tall enough that she probably didn't even _need_ to use the chair at this rate, but either way, the governor was feeling generous. Bring Your Spawn To Work Day didn't come every day of the year, after all.

He'd had his suit freshly pressed and his governor's robes seemed to shimmer with a festive spirit all on their own. He smiled as soon as he heard Elphaba running around upstairs. That meant that Nessa would soon be dressed and ready and the two of them would be out of the house and well on their way to City Hall on schedule. He flipped the omelet onto the plate and set it down in front of Nessa's usual spot at the table.

Just as he was in the midst of pouring his own raw omelet into the pan, Elphaba came barreling down the back staircase and into the kitchen, shouting, "Daaaaaaaad!" about half as loudly as Frex actually perceived it. The governor cringed as he spilled a sizeable portion of the egg batter onto the range instead, accidentally extinguishing the flame and forcing the governor to clean off and relight the skillet.

"What?" Frex snapped, as if Elphaba had just interrupted quadruple bypass surgery. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

"It's _important_," Elphaba insisted.

"It can't be as important as breakfast," Frex quipped back. "Your sister and I need to get off to a good start this morning. Today's a big day and…"

"Nessa's sick." Elphaba cut him off, bracing herself for the rage to come.

Elphaba's words echoed in Frex's mind like something straight out of a nightmare. He almost poured the entire container of soap onto the skillet. He was in total shock. "She's not sick." He stated after about three minutes of uninterrupted silence, as if just saying the words would make everything the way it was supposed to be. "She can't be sick, not today!" The governor of Munchkinland immediately snapped to attention and chucked the soap back into the washbasin as he stormed across the room to the stairwell, with Elphaba tagging along behind him, to see firsthand if she was making it up or not.

"She has a fever of a hundred and two." Elphaba stated, struggling to keep up with her father as he practically ran up the stairs in panic, skipping every other step. "She also vomited on my work frock, which is why I'm wearing the one you said was supposed to be for special occasions and not for cleaning Quoxball memorabilia."

"Nessa?" Frex cried, completely ignoring Elphaba's warning as he burst into the room. His younger daughter looked downright abysmal. She was a good two shades paler than usual, and Elphaba's soiled work frock had been wadded up and tossed to the side of the room. "Nessa, you're well enough to go to Bring Your Spawn To Work Day, aren't you? Right?"

Nessa responded by puking all over Frex's good robes.

* * *

"What am I going to do?" Frex wailed, voraciously shoveling down Nessa's omelet himself as Elphaba scrubbed the egg off of the skillet. "My public reputation was hanging on this day, no thanks to _you_ and that ridiculous stunt you pulled last year, and now it's all ruined! This is one of your tricks, isn't it? I know you're behind this, Elphaba Thropp! I ought to ban you from ever…"

"It wasn't me, Dad." Elphaba bluntly cut him off. "She just got sick. Kids get sick all the time. It's probably a stomach flu. Seriously, where do you come up with this stuff?"

"Nessa knows better than to catch _any_ kind of flu on Bring Your Spawn To Work Day!" Frex pointedly interjected. "My reputation as a good father is hanging on me bringing my spawn to Bring Your Spawn to Work Day! Without that, my public image will be tarnished beyond repair!"

"If you were a good father in the first place, then you wouldn't be in this fix, now, would you?" Elphaba retorted.

"I _am_ a good father and you of all people should be grateful for that," Frex scowled. He took a swig of orange juice and added, "Most fathers would just leave a green baby out for dead in a dumpster somewhere. Half the time I doubt you're even mine at all, because that green certainly didn't come from your mother's side either!"

"I'm flattered that you care so much," Elphaba sarcastically replied, batting her eyelashes and pegging the soiled dishrag into the washbasin as she sat down for a bowl of Bran Cubes.

"I even took the time to get the box of Bran Cubes out of the cupboard for you," Frex defended himself as he watched her pour her cereal into the bowl. "Did I hear one single word of gratitude? Nooooooo…"

"Thank you, oh honorable father, for saving me two seconds in getting my nutritious breakfast out of the kitchen cupboard." Elphaba rolled her eyes. "I am forever in your debt." She punctuated her sentence by chomping down on her first bite, which made a crunch so loud you could have sworn it had been digitally enhanced.

Frex sighed. So far Nessa was a no-show for work, his robes were in no condition to be worn at all, and Elphaba was giving him nothing but lip-service since she got out of bed. "How could this Bring Your Spawn to Work Day end up so awful so quickly?" He groaned. "If I show up to Bring Your Spawn to Work Day without a kid, I might as well kiss my position and this mansion goodbye all over again."

Elphaba stared at him with a scowl, almost as if she were offended or something.

"What?" Frex exclaimed, annoyed.

"Dad, you do realize I'm your daughter, right?" Elphaba raised an eyebrow. She didn't add the part about spending every night fervently praying to the Unnamed God that she'd been switched at birth.

Frex jumped to his feet, knocking his chair over in the process. "Ohhhhh no! No no no no no! Hell no! Don't even _think_ about it!" He snapped. "Your funny business is what got me into this mess in the first place, remember? You'll probably just screw this day up even worse than it already is! Besides, if you go to City Hall with me, who's going to polish my Wizards memorabilia? Nessa? I think not!" And with that, he pounded the table hard enough to rattle all of the dishes and flatware on it.

"Do you want your reputation back or not?" Elphaba replied without even flinching. "If you show up to work _without_ a kid, you said yourself that it would look much worse to the public than if you'd shown up _with_ a kid. It shouldn't matter which kid you bring, as long as you do bring one. And I can certainly keep quiet. Don't you trust me?" She glanced up at her father, who had begun pacing back and forth and fuming to himself as she spoke.

"What kind of question is _that_?" He roared from across the room. "You're the one who got me in all this trouble in the first place!"

Elphaba bit her lip as she weighed her options. "Fine. Fine, okay. You're right." She raised her hands in surrender. "You shouldn't have any reason to trust me after what I did last year. And I promise, if I were to accompany you to Bring Your Spawn to Work Day, should I put on a show that is one iota less than satisfactory in your eyes, I will openly state in front of your public that I coordinated the entire child abuse scandal myself."

"I'd prefer it if you did that instead, actually." He bargained with a sly grin.

"If I make such a statement without first causing your reputation any harm at work, you can bet I'm going to add the part about the negligence and abuse you really have shown me—AND Nessa, who for your information, couldn't care less about Quoxball—over the past nine years, and it shouldn't be too hard for them to believe me, considering most of my frocks now come up past my knees. It's obvious I'm long overdue for a new one."

Frex frowned. She'd managed to back him into a corner this time. "You know what? Okay. Fine. Come along, but don't think I'm going to make this easy for you…or that you're getting paid at all. Now hurry up and call the nurse so Nessa doesn't puke on anything while we're gone."

As soon as her father had stormed out of the room to freshen up again, Elphaba pumped her fist in triumph and did an incredibly awkward victory dance before heading to Frex's den to call the nurse. This was _really_ going to be an interesting day…


	3. Welcome to City Hall

**Disclaimer: **The usual. See last two chapters for details.

**Author's Note:** Everyone is awesome.

**Chapter 3: Welcome to City Hall**

Frex's carriage to City Hall arrived precisely at 9AM. He and Elphaba didn't keep the driver waiting for as long as Frex had expected. The ride lasted no longer than five minutes and passed uneventfully due to the tense, awkward silence between the two passengers.

Eventually the carriage slowed to a stop in front of the main entrance to City Hall. Elphaba hadn't had much occasion to visit her father at work , so this was the first time she'd ever actually been inside the building itself. Frex made it a point to enter as quickly as possible, presumably because he'd rather not be seen out in public with Elphaba at all. The awkward stares from random strangers would be too hard on his fragile self-esteem. The day was already shaping up to be pretty awful and he hadn't even clocked in yet.

Elphaba made sure to remain a good two or three feet behind Frex as he approached the receptionist. "Good morning, Governor Thropp," she stated. "I take it your robes are being cleaned today?"

"It was a spur-of-the-moment decision on my part." Frex haughtily stated.

"Is this your oldest?" The receptionist politely asked, glancing curiously at Elphaba and entirely skirting the subject of her skin tone. The governor looked like he was in a foul mood and she knew better than to ruffle any feathers.

"Yes." Frex begrudgingly stated. He wasn't in the mood for idle chatter. In fact, the sooner he got to work, the better. "We'd best be heading up to the office now. Come along, Elphaba."

Elphaba snapped to attention and scurried along after her father, who seemed to be in a hurry to leave the lobby. They took the lift to the top level, where he and his executive board worked. "Now Elphaba," he warned as they boarded the lift, "I've got a lot of hard work to do today, so I'm not going to be able to entertain you the whole time. I've left a lot of paperwork with my secretary, Mr. Baekin, and I'd like you to help him out with it."

"Fine." Elphaba stated. She couldn't help but wonder if Nessa would be doing her father's secretarial work had she been well enough to come to City Hall instead that day. She doubted it. Frex probably would have had Nessa putting stamps on documents that needed to be mailed out, or pounding a gavel in front of everyone. Something brainless and showy. She wasn't exactly sure what Frex did at City Hall that could possibly be fun for a nine-year-old.

The lift door opened and Frex and Elphaba stepped out into a lobby. In the corner farthest from the lift was a single desk manned by a Munchkin dressed in a government uniform. This fellow was slightly wider than he was tall, wore thick glasses, and looked as though he'd been sporting a mullet all of his life. Sadly, that mullet didn't look very much like a mullet anymore. He was quite bald on top. All that was left was the party in the back, which looked more like a tangled mess than any party Elphaba had ever seen.

"Lenz," Frex addressed the Munchkin, who was presumably his secretary, "Nessa caught some kind of bug last night, so I brought my other daughter to work instead. She likes Quoxball and sailing like all normal kids. I'd like you to find something for her to do so she isn't just sitting around doing nothing all day. This one's got a knack for getting into mischief, and I don't want her accidentally ruining anything important."

"This is…um…your daughter?" Lenz Baekin wheezed. Elphaba wondered to herself whether or not his middle name was Eetsalodda. "She doesn't look, er, very much like you. I suppose I could give her something to do while she's here, though." He glanced at her again, trying hard not to stare too much. "What happened to all those, uh, documents that needed stamps?"

"Don't worry yourself over those." Frex curtly stated. "I'll be in my office." And with that, he turned and abruptly strode through the door, slamming it behind him. Baekin cringed. Today would probably not be a good day to disrupt Governor Thropp for any reason whatsoever. He glanced over at the girl again in an attempt to estimate her skills. She looked to be about fourteen or fifteen, though as a Munchkin, he found it difficult to peg her age exactly. Every non-Munchkin seemed equally tall in his eyes, not that his eyes were all that great to start with.

"I suppose you could, er, start by rearranging the Governor's credit records chronologically and, uh, separating them by company." Baekin assessed, scratching his head underneath the rats' nest of hair he had left, either out of habit or from a bad case of lice. Elphaba couldn't quite tell and really didn't want to know. "The files are in the cabinet under the picture over there."

Elphaba glanced over at the file cabinet in question. It was downright jammed with paperwork. She glanced back at Baekin and frowned. "Mr. Baekin, when was the last time you've opened that cabinet?" She asked.

Baekin, taken aback by her direct question, stuttered and stammered before he finally managed to respond, "I..er…well, Govern—er, your father…I haven't been working here very long. Normally, uh, I do the, what do you call it? The custodial…duties…"

"You were a janitor?"

"More or less." Baekin admitted. "Governor Thropp, um, his secretary quit on him last month. Instead of hiring someone, uh, new, he promoted me. Sort of. I still get paid the same."

Elphaba may have been young and fairly sheltered, but she was certainly smart enough to know a bad business decision when she saw one. Judging from the state of the file cabinet, his other secretary probably wasn't that great, either. She cautiously approached the cabinet, which upon closer inspection was literally starting to bulge from the number of credit notifications inside it. The moment she touched the button to open the second drawer from the top, the drawer popped out alarmingly fast and slammed straight into her chest, knocking her a few feet back as a dozen stray papers fluttered to the ground around her.

Elphaba was about to mutter something under her breath when the lift slid open again. Another Munchkin walked out, with a giant crate in his hands. He was practically all muscle. A Munchkin boy about Elphaba's age trailed a few feet behind him. "Hey Lenny," the newcomer greeted the secretary with a charming smile. "I'd like you to meet my boy Tado! He'll be fourteen in two months, and by golly if we get that Quoxball team by the time he's out of school he'll be our starting Slammer for sure!"

Tado looked like trouble. Elphaba noted that he was about as well-built as his father, with a menacing scowl that reminded her of the schoolyard bullies she'd seen on television. On top of that, he was a Quoxball player. His only saving grace was that Tado was a full two heads shorter than Elphaba was.

"A Slammer, huh?" Baekin replied. "Dharmi, I'm, uh, sure he'll be a great, er, Slammer. I take I you caught the, uh, Wizards Scrimmage last night?"

"Caught it? Tado and I were there, baby! Front-n-center!" Dharmi plopped the crate down on Baekin's desk with a crash as his grin widened. "We were so close we were practically sitting in the foul zone…"

Elphaba didn't even pretend to try and understand the conversation that unfolded. Dharmi and Baekin may as well have been speaking Quadling. In fact, Quadling came slightly easier to Elphaba than Quoxball lingo did, so she ignored the conversation and tried her best to sort through the mess of paperwork instead.

She'd managed to get three piles going when the conversation suddenly shifted. "So Lenz, you never told me you had a daughter," Dharmi suddenly glanced towards Elphaba. "Is she seasick? Does she have a name?"

"Uh…I don't…that is…" Lenz explained, "She's not mine, uh, Governor Thropp never told me, uh, her…"

"Not yours, eh?" Dharmi rolled his eyes. "She adopted, then? Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. What's with the green, anyway? She doesn't look like a sports fan...that ain't natural, is it?"

Baekin shrugged. Elphaba resisted every urge to blow her top at the muscle-head right then and there, but she knew better. Any of that freaky stuff and she'd probably wind up locked in an asylum somewhere over the rainbow.

"Ah well," Dharmi sighed. "I'd better get back downstairs. Plenty of boxes to haul and all that. Mind if I leave the boy up here while I get things fixed up?"

"Um...er...well, no, I don't mind. Uh, he can help, uh, the girl with the, uh, credit thing."

The stocky Munchkin teenager took one look at Elphaba and involuntarily took a step back. "Dad..." he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

"Don't worry, Tado," Dharmi gave his son a pat on the head. "It won't take very long. I'll be back for you before you can say 'Championship Medallion!'"

Before anyone could say a word, Elphaba found herself trapped in the lobby with the spineless janitor-turned-secretary, a mountain of credit card debt to sort through, and a Munchkin boy who could probably snap her in half if she so much as looked at him the wrong way. Her father hadn't even bothered to introduce her to any of these people. This day was certainly shaping up to be...something.


	4. Filing With Tado

**Disclaimer: **Wicked and the world of Oz aren't mine.  
**Claimer: **All of the unsavory employees working under Frex, as well as most of their kids, _are_ mine, but if anyone wants to use them for any non-lucrative reason at all, that's cool.  
**Author's Note: ** SPEEEEEEEAK.

* * *

**Chapter 4: Filing With Tado**

Bring Your Spawn to Work Day wasn't going well for Elphaba at all. It had barely even been ten minutes and Frex had all but outright disowned her. He'd stuck her in a stuffy lobby under the surveillance of his former janitor, who was, despite being completely unqualified for the job, in charge of managing the governor's financial debts and earnings (but mostly debts). On top of _that_, she was stuck in the company of a Munchkin boy who looked like he could bench press a couple of carriages with one hand. That Munchkin boy seemed to be methodically eyeing her up and evaluating whether making her life hell right in front of the man he thought to be her father would be worth the trouble. To complicate everything further, Frex hadn't even bothered to tell Mr. Baekin Elphaba's name.

Tado decided (correctly) that Baekin wasn't the confrontational type and sauntered up to where Elphaba was trying her hardest to sort through her _real_ father's credit card bills. "So what's the deal, beanpole?" The boy asked, his voice dripping with mock interest in Elphaba. "Were you born green or something? Did your fatass Daddy over there forget to use washable paint at the last Wizards game?" He cast a quick glance at Baekin, who had his nose buried in a book entitled "Bookkeeping for Nitwits."

Elphaba just flatly replied, "Yes" without any indication as to which of Tado's questions she was referring.

"What?" Tado pretended to look hurt. "You don't have to be such a jerk. I'm only trying to be nice and start a friendly conversation."

"Please. And I'm the governor's daughter." Elphaba retorted, hoping her sarcasm would mask any truth in that statement. She wanted to keep her cards close. She needed the upper hand if she was going to make it through this day without doing anything Frex wouldn't like. "We all know you and I are about as compatible as ice cream and asparagus, and that you'd rather be downstairs hauling boxes with your dad, right? In all honesty, I'm surprised you know how to use a big word like 'conversation' in a sentence at all."

"Ouch. Way to judge a book by its cover." Tado melodramatically cringed, even though Elphaba's assessment was completely accurate. "I'm hurt. You got a name?"

"Yes." Elphaba knelt down to pick up as many bills as she could carry. Some of them dated back to before her parents were even married. Didn't Frex throw _anything_ away? "Hey, are you going to help sort this junk or am I going to have to do it myself?"

"Geez, why are you so bossy?" Tado whined, but he helped her pick up the papers anyway. The girl put up a tough fight. He decided it'd be fun to try and see if he could get her to crack before his dad got back. It'd certainly make the morning more interesting.

Since Elphaba seemed unfazed by that quip, the two of them sorted the paperwork in silence for a while after that. As they worked, no less than a dozen strange Munchkins passed through the lobby, but the only one Elphaba was able to pick out of the lot was her father's chief advisor, Forton Datt. She and Mr. Datt had met briefly years ago.

Forton Datt was actually an old classmate of Frex's from his school days, but thirty years of chain smoking made him look significantly older than the governor. He was tallish for a Munchkin and skinny, and he still had a full head of frizzy gray hair. He kept his hair long and came to work wearing a frumpy suit, work boots, and a cap that looked much too casual for his line of work. In fact, if Elphaba hadn't known Datt, she'd have easily mistaken him for a street bum who'd accidentally wandered into City Hall instead of the governor's second-in-command...and if he hadn't been such good friends with Frex when they were kids, she wasn't sure anyone would have hired the man.

Since Elphaba was the sort of individual who made a strong impression without even trying, despite all the time that had passed, Mr. Datt sauntered up to her with a goofy grin on his face. "Hey there, Elphaba! Heh, heh! You've certainly shot up, haven't ya?" He exclaimed with a cackle. His breath reeked of cigars and he looked like he was missing a few more teeth than he had been when they last met. "Didn't expect to see you here, heh heh. Usually your dad takes your sister to Bring Your Spawn to Work Day. Is she doing all right?"

Elphaba frowned. "She came down with a bad bug this morning." She replied, barely taking her eyes off the paperwork. "Dad brought me instead."

"Oh, that's too bad, heh heh." Datt replied with a sigh. "I picked up a new box of crayons for her, since she's always coloring and such. I 'spose you can have 'em instead if she's not going to be around."

"Thanks," Elphaba replied, stunned that he'd offer them to her instead. Even though art wasn't really her thing, she knew how much Frex complained about her to his friends. The thought of any of them having anything nice to say to her was almost alien to her. Datt seemed like a genuinely good guy after all...he even seemed to realize that Nessa liked coloring instead of sports. "I'll pass them along after work."

"Okay then, better get back to the old grind, heh heh!" Datt grinned. "It was nice seeing you again!" And with that, he wandered into Frex's office.

"Elphaba?" Tado sputtered the moment the frumpy advisor was out of earshot. "What kind of idiot names their kid Elphaba? Your folks musta been ASKING for trouble. It's almost like Elephant...nah, you're too skinny to be Elephant. " He mused to himself for a while. "I KNOW!" He suddenly exclaimed so loudly that Baekin actually looked up from his book. "I'll call you ELPHABUTT! You like that, Elphabutt?"

"It's lovely." Elphaba rolled her eyes. "Your awe-inspiring creativity and intellect leave me utterly speechless."

Tado glanced back at Baekin to further test the waters. When he saw that the fat Munchkin hadn't even reacted, Elphaba noticed a devious glint in his eyes. "Your dad isn't even _doing_ anything about it, Elphabutt. He's just sitting there reading his book like some kind of fat egghead. I don't think he cares about you at all!"

Elphaba raised an eyebrow. "Gee, what ever gave you that impression?" She quipped.

"Oooh, did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed?" Tado taunted. "If you're not going to play nice, I'm going to have to take these crayons off your hands..."

Tado reached for the box of crayons, but Elphaba quickly snatched them out of his reach. "Those are for my little sister, Tado. You lay one finger on them and I'll _break_ your fingers, got it?"

"A beanpole like you couldn't break my fingers," Tado sneered. He'd found her weakness. "So you got a sister, huh, Elphabutt? Is she hot? She isn't green, is she?"

"Shut up, Tado." Elphaba practically stepped on his words. "She's _nine_. And even if she were old enough to date you, I doubt you'd even be her type, so lay off."

"Yeah, right. I'm _everyone's_ type. No girl can resist me." Tado snickered under his breath. "Juuuust give her a few more years..."

"That's _enough_," Elphaba stated through clenched teeth as she reached over to push the boy away. "Leave my sister out of this!" Tado took the opportunity to snatch away Nessa's crayons.

"Ooops, looks like you dropped something, Elphabutt!" Tado exclaimed triumphantly as Elphaba flushed a darker shade of green in fury. He dangled the box of crayons in front of Elphaba's face with a wicked grin. "That old hobo buddy of your dad's even splurged on the good kind! That probably set back his booze fund for another week! Too bad once I'm through with them, you and your hottie of a sister won't be able to use them!"

"_GIVE THOSE BACK!" _Elphaba roared as her braid seemed to stand on end and the lights flickered. Lenz Baekin remained completely unfazed and absorbed in his reading. Before Tado could even blink, he found himself flying into the wall, ripping through the wallpaper, denting the plaster, and slamming into the piping behind it. The crayons stayed put, hovering in the air where Tado had been dangling them. Elphaba quickly grabbed them before Baekin could look up and notice.

Much to her dismay, Tado hadn't been knocked unconscious from the magical outburst. "W-w-w-w..." He stammered. "WHAT IN THE WIZARD'S NAME WAS _THAT!_"

"Nothing of your concern." Elphaba snapped, doing a quick spot-check of the lobby. She spotted a small lens peeking out of an indiscreet window in the ceiling and muttered a curse under her breath. If that really was a kinetoscopic surveillance recorder up there, she'd have to find and destroy the security reels before her father got to them...not to mention, she needed to do something about that hole in the wall Tado made. If her dad left the office for any reason whatsoever, he'd be completely off the hook and she'd be in terrible, terrible trouble.

"You are the freakiest girl I've ever met!" Tado muttered as he shakily pulled himself to his feet.

Elphaba fumed to herself, wondering how she'd replace the wallpaper on such short notice. If anything, she'd have to at least cover up the damage before Frex went on his lunch break. Then it hit her. "Tado, you're strong, right? Go move that filing cabinet in front of the hole in the wall or I'll mess you up even _worse._"

"You...you wouldn't _dare._" Tado balked.

"My dad sure didn't seem to care when I hurled you into the wall the _first_ time, did he?"

Tado glanced over to where Baekin was _still_ reading. He glanced back at Elphaba, then back to Baekin again. Clearly this sort of thing must have been common around the Baekin household. He sighed. "Fine. Just...fine." He resigned. With a few quick shoves, he shifted the cabinet to cover the hole.

"Perfect." Elphaba grinned. "If anybody asks, Bae...er...my dad told us to rearrange the furniture before we sorted through the bills, and then when I opened the filing cabinet to start sorting the paperwork, it exploded because there was too much junk in there already. Since it really did sort of explode, that alibi's solid. In the meantime, you're coming with me. Somewhere in City Hall there's a surveillance reel out there with footage of this whole incident that needs to be destroyed."

"Wait, what? Coming with...oh no, my dad's going to come up and get me any minute!" Tado blubbered. "I can't just go...running...around..." Elphaba glared at him and cracked her knuckles. He had no way of knowing her magic was involuntary. "Fine. Geez, you don't have to be so nasty..." Tado muttered under his breath as Elphaba summoned the lift.


End file.
